Richard Lerner

Richard Alan Lerner ( born August 26, 1938 in Chicago, Illinois) is an American biochemist. Lerner is Professor of Chemistry at the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California.

Life

Lerner studied at Northwestern University, Illinois, and Stanford University, California, medicine and earned an MD in 1964 ( Professional Doctorate ). As a medical assistant, he worked at the Palo Alto Stanford Hospital in Palo Alto, California. 1965 moved learner as a research assistant at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation in La Jolla, California, before he moved to the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in 1968. Since 1970, Lerner worked at the Scripps Clinic and Research Foundation again, which was later renamed the Research Institute of Scripps Clinic, and finally in the Scripps Research Institute. He went through departments of Experimental Pathology, immunopathology, cellular and developmental immunology, molecular biology, chemistry and biochemistry. From 1987 to 2012 was Robert Lerner Director of the Scripps Research Institute.

Work

Lerner has developed new methods at the interface between immunology, molecular biology, biochemistry and chemistry. Lerner developed antibody libraries (see, phage display ), which allow to produce antibodies without immunization. He could also use antibodies to act as catalysts of certain chemical reactions (catalytic antibodies abzymes ). The binding energy of the antibody and antigen can be used to accelerate thermodynamically unfavorable reaction pathways.

Awards (selection)

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